A Multi-level Approach to the Study of Violent Extremism

The applicant proposes to study how the components of risk are nested in multi-level structures and to show how those variables work in combination to drive individual-level terrorism outcomes. In an attempt to improve risk assessment tools, this project will adopt a multi-level framework that considers how micro-level characteristics interact in sequence with meso- and macro- level variables to facilitate or counteract terrorist violence. The applicant plans to do this by adding 1,000 new cases to the Profiles of Individuals Radicalized in the United States (PIRUS) database and applying a social network analysis to PIRUS. The applicant proposes that this will help discover social networks and analyze attributes of those networks on the three different levels. The applicants will consider factors such as organizational hierarchy, network cohesion, and recruitment flows. The applicant further proposes to study community level variables by overlaying the PIRUS data with macro-level data at the city or county-level using US Census data from 1940-2010. This project contains a research component as defined in applicable law. CA/NCF